Monthly Archives: January 2012

If Hollywood is a lot like high school, then it’s no wonder how we catch ourselves doing a double take when we see famous friendships crossing the typical clique lines. But instead of just shaking our heads, we decided to present the parade of pretty odd pairs to you in a real-life “The Breakfast Club”-style gallery of all the seemingly
misfit friendships of the rich and famous.

Call us crazy, but we were just plain shocked when we found out that Jennifer Aniston, one of the world’s biggest movie stars, had befriended Chelsea Handler, an admittedly boozy comedian who made a name for herself skewering celebrities on a late-night talk show. Weird, right? Not if you ask Aniston.Read More

LOS A.NGELES (UPI) â€” A federal jury decided Monday that entertainer Bette Midler‘s distinctive singing style was misappropriated by a New York ad agency for a television c o m m e r c i al a nd a w a r d ed h er $400,000 in damages.

Midler sued the Young & Rubicam agency and Ford Motor Co. for $10 million, saying a commercial for the Mercury Sable sedan used an exact reproduction of her first big hit record, “Do You Wanna Dance,” released in 1973. In 1985, she refused the agency’s offer to sing in the commercial.Read More

LOS ANGELES-Bette Midler testified in her $10 million lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. and an ad agency that a commercial in which a singer imitated her voice damaged her reputation irreparably.

The Grammy-winning singer and actress said one of her former backup singers was hired to perform the song “Do You Wanna Dance” for a 1986 Mercury Sable commercial after she turned Ford down.

“I don’t do commercials,” she testified Wednesday. “I don’t believe in it. I resent people looking at that commercial and thinking that’s me. They think I sold out. It doesn’t matter if I win or lose this trial. The damage is done.”Read More

-BETTE MIDLER says her own mom inspired her performance as Stella, an impoverished mother who raises an illegitimate daughter alone.

“I had a fabulous mother,” Ms. Midler said in the January issue of Ladies’Home Journal “She made me believe in myself and I used a lot of her in the film,” a remake of the 1937 Barbara Stanwyck drama, “Stella Dallas.”

“She was not a single parent like Stella, but we were poor and she was ihat generation of women, almost all gone now, who always put their family ahead’bf themselves. She worked hard and kept nothing for herself â€” nothing. Never a new dress or new shoes.Read More

“Not for all the money in the world will we let them make another film version of Gypsy,” said playwright Arthur Laurents.

The first time Hollywood filmed the Broadway mu s i c a l, it was “lousy,” said composer Jule Styne, referring to the 1962 Warner Bros, adaptation that starred Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood. Neither of the stars sang their roles in the Mervyn LeRoy-directed movie and critic Pauline Kael labeled the interpretation “extremely unpleasant.”Read More

Q: You mentioned in a recent column that two close friends of Bette Midler‘s died of AIDS. Articles about her latest movie, “Beaches,” have mentioned the tragedies in Bette’s personal life. Were they referring to her two friends? – J.B.

A: Bette had a close college friend who died tragically, and that friendship is echoed in the movie. But Bette has had more than her share of sorrow. A brother was born retarded, and one of her sisters was killed in a truck accident. Her
mother died of cancer and her father of a heart attack. As a close friend Said recently, “Bette knows what grief is all about and is one of the most compassionate people you’ll ever meet.”Read More

Bette Midler is said to be an extremely generous woman, giving as much time and money as she can to various charities. She seems to be especially supportive of the fight against AIDS. Does she have any personal reason for this?â€”P.E.

I’d say so. When she was in “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway, she was in love with actor Ben Gillespie, who turned out to be gay. The hairdresser on that musical, Bill Hennesey, who later became a writer for her, also was gay. The three were close friends. Both men died of AIDS.Read More